"Not too late, Horace," said poor Susan--"he is sensible--he knows _me_. But oh! before you speak to him, call Peggy first, and bid her tell the doctor. The doctor said he was to be called whenever papa moved." "The doctor! What doctor?--what does he want with a doctor?" said Horace, in his hoarse, dreadful voice. "The doctor is in the house--Uncle Edward would not let him go away. He _has_ moved--he has all but spoken! Oh! call the doctor, Horace!" cried Susan, eagerly; "perhaps it may be a sign for the better! Call Peggy--she will tell you where he is!" But Horace stood still on the threshold of the fatal room, looking round with wild, investigating eyes, as anxious, as desperate, as the sufferer's own. Where was it?--where was that little medicine-chest, which had dealt a slower death than he expected, but which, if it were found, might snatch the cup from his own lips, and abridge his lifelong punishment? Where was it? The dying man upon that bed, dreadful as was his son's curiosity about him, and terrible as the shock had been when their eyes met, was less important now than that chest and its tell-tale contents. He gazed around with his wild eyes--so like his father's--looking at everything but his father, who lay motionless, his dread eyes closed now, and his face turned towards the wall. Susan, in wild impatience, stamped her foot upon the floor, hoping by that means to attract somebody. There was a stir below, as of some one who heard her; and Horace, roused by the sound, approached the bedside cautiously. "He is dead!" her brother whispered in Susan's ears. It was the middle of the night, dark and still; and the poor girl, standing here between the dying man--who, perhaps, had died in that dreadful moment--and the living man, who looked like a maniac, lost all her self-command. She cried aloud in the extremity of her fear and anguish. Was Horace _mad?_ And in that miserable moment, with his rebel son returned to vex his soul, had her father passed away?